My Favorite Swamp

Unlike Washington, DC, there's nothing evil about the Okefenokee Swamp, home of Pogo. Today is the birthday of Walt Kelly, the man who created him and it.

I grew up reading Pogo. My oldest brother had the first book, and the strip was in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, which we got a day late in little old Lyndonville, NY. I loved the talking animals and the jokes, and as I proceeded toward teen age I wheedled my mom into each new book as it came out. When I got older I used my own money, and haunted the book racks at Woolworths for Pogo, Nero Wolfe and Heinlein paperbacks. But a new Pogo was always cause for celebration.

When I got old enough to have some understanding of current events, I began to see some of the satire. There was plenty of subtle commentary on current events, well beyond the famous "We have met the enemy, and he is us" comment on environmentalism. Characters would show up like Solid MacHogany, a caricature of Kruschev. It took me a while to pick up on the fact that Wiley Catt had an uncanny resemblance to Joe McCarthy.

I'm buying the big Fantagraphic reprint books as they come out. They are edited by Mark Evanier, a remarkable talent in his own right. Evanier, whom I met back in the good old CompuServe Comics Forum days, is also a serious fan of one of my other heroes, Stan Freberg. But he is a serious student of Pogo, and there is no one better to edit these anthologies. Each one has a remarkable introduction from some well-known person who was also a friend of the swamp: The Okefenokee Swamp.

Apparently he was very fast at sketching and drawing. That gave him time to draw beautiful backgrounds and swamp scenes. The books were more precious because the newspapers kept shrinking the comic strips, so the detail would vanish. They were reprinted in their glory in the annual books. He loved children and had quite a few, as well as three wives (no, not all at once). His third wife, Selby, had a strong resemblance to Miz Mam'selle Hepzibah. Eventually two of his kids started helping with the strip. As the strip became more successful, he hired an assistant and letterer, but it was all his style, usually done by inking his bluelines. His health declined due to diabetes, and near the end he had to have his feet amputated. When some of his poker buddies visited him in the hospital, he said he'd be back at the table "as soon as they grow back."

I never met Kelly; he passed when I was in college, in 1973. The strip that his kids sent to the syndicate that Christmas was unforgettable: "He always said, don't take life too serious; it ain't permanent."

Join me in raising a beverage of choice in honor of a smart, funny man who made subtle use of a lighthearted medium.